The Daily - Monday, Apr. 16, 2018

Episode Date: April 16, 2018

A battle is brewing between the Environmental Protection Agency, which wants to weaken auto emissions standards, and the state of California. Separately, James Comey, the F.B.I. director fired by President Trump, went on national television to call the president “morally unfit.” Guest: Coral Davenport, who covers environmental policy for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the coming battle between Trump's EPA and the state of California. And James Comey goes on national television to call the president a danger to the nation. It's Monday, April 16th. Ladies and gentlemen, I've come to feel great affection for the peoples of the world because they've always been so welcoming to me. If it is as a bodybuilding champion, or as a movie star, private citizen,

or as the governor of the great state of California. So the emission standards that we have today in the United States are among the strictest and most stringent in the world. And we owe that largely to the state of California. Coral Davenport covers energy and the environment for The Times. Well, ladies and gentlemen, something remarkable is beginning to stir. Something revolutionary, something historic and transformative. Let me give you some background.

Back in the early 2000s, the state of California was going to very aggressively move ahead of the rest of the country and put these very tight car emission standards in place that would be stronger than the rest of the country. What we're doing is changing the dynamic, preparing the way, and encouraging the future. So the new standards would force automakers to make vehicles that get an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. That's almost double what they were when the standards were put in place. So that's pretty ambitious. Very ambitious. Coral, how is it that one state, California, has the ability to set its own emission standards? I tend to think of these things as national, kind of one standard for all 50 states. Each of us all across this great land has a stake in maintaining and improving environmental quality.

Under the terms of the 1970 Clean Air Act, we have passed new laws to protect the environment, and we have mobilized the terms of the 1970 Clean Air Act, we have passed new laws to protect the environment and we have mobilized the power of public concern. California, especially L.A., had some of the worst air in the country, the worst smog in the country. Here we are. You should be able to see the mountains. You should be able to see our beautiful city, but you can't you can't see anything. California got a special waiver to set stronger air pollution standards than the rest of the country because that was what was necessary to clean up the LA smog and clean up some of the most polluted air in the country, which at the time was in California.

If all of our cars were operating efficiently, we would have a significant reduction in all of this pollution and junk that's in the air. That's what we need to do. And so ever since, there has been this waiver for California to set tighter clean air standards than the rest of the country. California is a very powerful state, a very powerful place. And when we do something, it has consequences. And here's what we're doing. California is mobilizing technologically, financially, and politically to fight global climate change.

So what ends up happening is there's a couple of years between about 2004 and 2009 where these standards are considered and debated and put into place in California, but they haven't yet been implemented. And the auto industry is totally freaked out. that these standards are going to be fully implemented in California, and they are going to face what so many automakers have described as sort of their worst nightmare, where there's one set of standards for the state of California and a different set of standards for the rest of the country. And they're going to have to create two different kinds of cars for these two giant markets. And how giant is the market in California? The California market is huge. It's about 30% of the entire U.S. auto market. It's like all of the ways in which you manufacture your product, you have to go into your factories and make two entirely different kinds of the same product. Automakers just saw this as a logistical and financial nightmare, and they were desperate to come up with some kind of

way to not face this. And of course, what they wanted was for the federal government to revoke this waiver that California has so there wouldn't be two different standards. Governor Schwarzenegger had a different idea. What was his idea? Today, I got great news from Washington. So Governor Schwarzenegger's idea was... This morning I spoke with Carol Brown, who is the president's advisor on climate change.

To work with the federal government after the election of President Obama to take the California standards and instead make them national. The goal is to set one national standard that will rapidly increase fuel efficiency without compromising safety. This was something that Obama really wanted to do because this was a major climate change policy. And I want to applaud California and Governor Schwarzenegger and the entire

California delegation for their extraordinary leadership. They have led the way on this, as they have in so many other efforts to protect the environment. And how do the car companies respond to the prospect of stricter national standards, not just in California, but suddenly being adopted potentially by the president across the country? This wasn't ideal for the car companies. It wasn't exactly what they wanted. But just at the moment that this was happening, the proponents of the stricter standard, the state of California and the Obama administration, had a lot of leverage.

We cannot and must not, and we will not, let our auto industry simply vanish. Because the federal government had just given an $80 billion bailout to the big three auto companies who were on the verge of bankruptcy. What I'm talking about is using our existing legal structure as a tool that, with the backing of the U.S. government, can make it easier for General Motors and Chrysler to quickly clear away old debts that are weighing them down so that they can get back on their feet and onto a path to success. And so if their option was two separate standards or one stricter standard, that was the least worst of the options. And all these forces came together to create these

strict new standards based on the California standards. So the auto companies buckle and they accept these national standards. Yes. But with one condition, and this is really important, But with one condition, and this is really important, they said we would like to be able to go back in 2017. And they specifically chose that year because Obama would definitely no longer be in office. We would like to build in to these strict regulations the ability to go back in 2017 and reopen them. And if it turns out that it's too difficult for us to meet them, we would like what they called an off-ramp, the ability to go back and reconsider the regulations and loosen them or weaken them if we can show that they have been too onerous. So they plant the seed of a sunset clause that might make these standards expire. That would make it legal for another administration to go back in and tinker with them and weaken them.

President Donald Trump delivers remarks at a rally in Detroit, Michigan, on his plan to boost the U.S. auto industry and job creation. Thank you very much. It is truly great to be back here in Michigan. So the automakers are ready and waiting for this moment. Within the first few weeks after President Trump is inaugurated, the CEOs of the big three automakers had a visit with him in the Oval Office. And the very first thing that they asked for was to revisit these fuel economy standards. They said, there's too onerous. They're forcing us to build all these electric cars. Consumers don't want to buy them. This technology is too expensive. And soon after that. And it's also wonderful to be here with the leaders, workers, engineers, and suppliers of Ford and Fiat Chrysler and General Motors.

President Trump visited an automaker in Detroit where he announced that we're going to do this. I'm sure you've all heard the big news that we're going to work on the CAFE standards so you can make cars in America again. Have American automakers make the cars Americans want to buy, does this big announcement. There is no more beautiful sight than an American-made car. No more beautiful sight. So the EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, starts preparing to do the legal paperwork to file the legal documentation required to actually go in and roll back these regulations. So we knew that was coming. And we also started hearing that there would be a big kind of media, flashy, showy media announcement.

Trump administration announcing today another big rollback of Obama-era environmental rules. A new move by the Trump administration could challenge California's ambitious clean energy goals. The Trump administration rolling back Obama-era fuel standards. Pruitt says the EPA is working to determine appropriate emission standards and said the ones established under the Obama administration are too high. But the EPA wouldn't tell us what was happening or where it was happening or anything. We heard sort of through other sources that they were planning announcement at this Chevy dealership in suburban Virginia. And then like at midnight the night before, we heard that the announcement was off, even though the policy was still going to happen.

And then they said they were going to do it at this sort of closed-door announcement, actually just at the EPA offices. So what had actually happened? At the last minute, there were some automakers and auto dealers that were starting to get cold feet about this announcement. to get cold feet about this announcement. When they started to hear what the administration appears to have in mind, which is a very aggressive, substantive rollback, I've heard even a number that's been talked about is rolling them back 40 percent. They could end up in exactly the situation that they hadn't wanted in the first place, which is two different markets. If they roll back the national standard and California is allowed to keep its legal waiver for its own cleaner standards, that is the nightmare scenario for automakers. And so, you know, one person I talked to,

one expert said, they're like the dog that caught the car. You know, wait a minute, what do I do now? Is this really what I wanted? Okay, so car dealerships and car companies are worried that the Trump administration will go too far and in the process end up upsetting California, creating a scenario where there would again be this tension between California and its standards and the rest of the country and their standards. That is logistically their worst nightmare. In general, it's pretty consistent that industry doesn't want regulation, but even more than they don't like regulation, they don't like uncertainty. Industries will say that's even worse. We want to know what the ground rules are so we can make long-term investments. And if we don't know the ground rules, it's a lot harder to invest in what we're going to do in the future. The uncertainty hurts worse, hurts industries, hurts investments, and probably hurts the economy worse than clearly defined regulations. beyond what the auto industry is comfortable with and potentially rile up the state of California and injure the very industry that these are intended to assist. President Trump sees himself as the great deregulator of these American industries.

American cars will travel the roads, American planes will soar the skies. And American ships will patrol the seas. Built in America. And he loves especially to talk about rolling back regulations on sort of these iconic American industries like coal mining or automakers. We want more cars made in the USA, and that's going to happen. And there's a comparison to be drawn, I think, with the tariffs as well. You know, he said he's created these huge tariffs,

and some of these American companies and American industries are saying, well, wait a minute, this actually might not help us. You know, it's a lot more complex and nuanced than just slapping on some tariffs. It's a lot more complex and nuanced than just rolling back these regulations. And I do think that the president wants to help the auto industry, but it does seem that some of the nuance of that messaging perhaps has been lost. So where does all this leave us? It sounds like California still holds a lot of the cards in this situation. Could California scuttle this plan to roll back emission standards pretty dramatically by the White House? can just do that. The question is, can the White House force California to comply with the new lower standard? And so we will see the answers to this unfold probably in the next few months. There might be a deal in the offing where California and the federal government would

work together for a very, very slight loosening of the standards. But California's government, particularly under its current governor, Jerry Brown, is very aggressively environmentally focused. They have no problem clashing with the Trump administration. In fact, I think sometimes they seem to delight in it. And the Trump administration sort of seems to feel the same way. They have no problem clashing with California, and they are very, very focused on an aggressive deregulatory agenda. So if their new numbers are way, way, way lower than the Obama numbers, you know, more than 10, 20, 30 percent, they will pretty much have to do a legal filing to revoke California's waiver to a stronger standard. California will jump right back with a countersuit.

So we'll see that legal fight unfold. And then the question of whether or not California can keep its own tighter standard or not, I think will go before the Supreme Court probably in the next year or so. What would these rollbacks that the president is pursuing look like for the auto industry and for the consumers who buy cars? Essentially, it would sort of leave the market where it is. You know, if the standards were to stay in place, we would see a pretty aggressive transition away from gas guzzlers and towards electric cars and ideally technological breakthroughs where you could have an electric or a hybrid or a fuel-efficient SUV. If they roll back the standards, essentially we won't see that progression. We won't see that evolution.

We'll just sort of see things remain the same. So the air wouldn't get any dirtier. It just wouldn't get any cleaner. Yeah, it wouldn't get any cleaner, but greenhouse gases would continue to trap heat in the atmosphere. So the planet would keep getting hotter. Coral, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Always a pleasure. We'll be right back. You write that President Trump is unethical, untethered to the truth. Is Donald Trump unfit to be president? Yes, but not in the way I often hear people talk about it. I don't buy the stuff about him being mentally incompetent to early stages of dementia. He strikes me as a person of above-average intelligence

who's tracking conversations and knows what's going on. I don't think he's medically unfit to be president. I think he's morally unfit to be president. On Sunday night, former FBI Director James Comey gave his first interview since his firing as he begins to publicize his memoir, which is scheduled to be released on Tuesday. A person who sees moral equivalence in Charlottesville, who talks about and treats women like they're pieces of meat, who lies

constantly about matters big and small and insists the American people believe it, that person's not fit to be president of the United States on moral grounds. And that's not a policy statement. Again, I don't care what your views are on guns or immigration or taxes. There's something more important than that that should unite all of us, and that is our president must embody respect and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country, the most important being truth.

This president is not able to do that. He is morally unfit to be president. The interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos is the first of a week's long media blitz that amounts to a remarkable public assault by a former high-ranking government official on a sitting president. Despite the deep concerns he expressed about the president, Comey said he did not want to see the president forced out of office. If you're right, what is the remedy? Should Donald Trump be impeached?

Impeachment is a question of law and fact and politics, and so that'll be determined by people gathering. You're a citizen. You have a judgment. Yeah, I'll tell you, I'll give you a strange answer. I hope not. Because I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they're duty-bound to do directly. People in this country need to stand up and go to the voting booth and vote their values. We'll fight about guns, we'll fight about taxes, we'll fight about all those other things

down the road, but you cannot have as President of the United States someone who does not reflect the values that I believe Republicans treasure and Democrats treasure and Independents treasure. That is the core of this country. That's our foundation. And so impeachment in a way would short circuit that. In a series of tweets sent out before the interview was aired, President Trump repeatedly attacked Comey, calling him a slimeball and a liar,

calling him a slimeball and a liar, and claimed that Comey will, quote, go down as the worst FBI director in history, by far. Here's what else you need to know today. Are there any consequences for Assad's patrons, Russia and Iran, who continue to protect him? Absolutely. So you will see that Russian sanctions will be coming down. Secretary Mnuchin will be announcing those on Monday if he hasn't already. On Sunday, the Trump administration said it would impose new sanctions against Russia to punish it for enabling Syria to use chemical weapons against civilians.

And they will go directly to any sort of companies that were dealing with equipment related to Assad and chemical weapons use. And so I think everyone is going to feel it at this point. I think everyone knows that we sent a strong message and our hope is that they listen to it. The sanctions follow American-led airstrikes on Friday, which struck Syrian government facilities linked to chemical weapons and are meant to signal that the U.S. holds both Syria and its allies, Russia and Iran, responsible for the chemical attacks. But on Sunday, Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, publicly celebrated his partnership

with Russia. During a meeting with Russian lawmakers in Damascus, Assad praised Russia for shooting down many of the U.S. missiles launched at Syria in Friday's attack. attack. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.